


Bleed me like you love me (its the only kind we know)

by WolfeyKitten



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: M/M, Red String of Fate, Will's Imagination
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-10
Updated: 2020-07-10
Packaged: 2021-03-05 03:34:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,320
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25187995
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WolfeyKitten/pseuds/WolfeyKitten
Summary: It's a frightening desire that Will harbors in the delicate crevices of his racing heart.Short dynamic exploration of Will's temptations.
Relationships: Will Graham/Hannibal Lecter
Comments: 1
Kudos: 10





	Bleed me like you love me (its the only kind we know)

**Author's Note:**

> I just watched Hannibal for the first time. As a kid, the gore was too much for me to get past the first few episodes. As an adult, I find myself wishing for more.

Will imagined the Red String of Fate that must run out from his body. He could feel it’s weight, often it felt like the string was taught, stretched pink like a rubber band, threatening to snap should he not relieve the pressure drawing it tight. No matter how he gravitated toward him, the elastic only grew more impatiently strained with proximity. He wondered how close he could get before it snapped, drawing them in with no guarantee that either will survive the other-- Will imagined the rubber band’s tension reaching its event horizon, and it was impossible to imagine an outcome that didn’t have his hands around the other’s throat and a hunting knife carving into his gut. He knew this with as much certainty as he knew that it was Hannibal Lecter at the other end of his Red String. 

The tension choked him since their very first encounter, since he looked at Dr. Lecter in Jack Crawford’s office and realized Hannibal was already cataloging his psyche. He felt vulnerable, predated upon by a man the way no other had. Letting anyone into his head was a nightmare, least of all Dr. Lecter. When Will looked at him in that moment, he saw Dr. Lecter wrap the string threateningly around his knuckles, pulling it so dangerously tight that it whitened the skin in the grooves it made on his fingers. His eyes narrowed their focus and his head tilted up, the expression of a man with a fish snared on the end of his line. 

It didn’t go away after he learned what Hannibal was. It scared him, like he was fighting for his life, not to twist free from Hannibal’s snare, but because he was afraid of losing himself to the gravity between them. The more Hannibal exposed his heart to him, the more it pulled Will in close. Wretched and sick, Will detested the feelings that settled in his gut when he arranged his corpses in courtship. He told Jack he felt no joy when he decorated that Saber-Tooth cat with the extremities of Randall Tier, but it wasn’t just Jack he was trying to convince. He wished from the very root of his being that he didn’t long to do it again, that he didn’t revel in the way Hannibal looked upon his work with soft, serious eyes, the same as the Roman emperors as they looked upon the slaughter in the Colosseum before delivering their judgement. 

The way Hannibal admired his work made his heart wretch with sick, saccharine sublimity. Will felt hollow even as he crawled at Hannibal’s feet, begging for approval like a dog before its master, like a sinner before the gates of heaven. 

When the elastic did finally snap, he received his divine punishment. They finally came together in the way they so often threatened to do. Will’s hands weren’t around Hannibal’s neck like he had always envisioned. Will felt Hannibal’s warmth, his hand softly cupping his face the way they might have touched as lovers. Before Will felt the knife carving his stomach, he felt the stars that erupted exactly where Hannibal decided to cut them out, like he knew exactly how Will languished when Hannibal touched him. Whether those stars were from fear or from love, it was impossible to discern. 

Forgiveness. When Hannibal embraced him, he felt it reverberate along their Red String. He stole the fluttering Will’s gut, and in return, was forgiven. As he bled out next to Abigail Hobbs, he briefly wondered if Hannibal hadn’t just conducted an operation-- maybe it was more for his own sake than Will’s. 

The palaces of his mind had been stunted in their growth. While Hannibal imagined  _ Palazzo dei Normanni,  _ Will couldn’t pull himself out of Dr. Lecter’s office. He imagined them coming together again, the Red String dwindling to nothing between them, the rungs from the ladder pressing into his back as Hannibal crowded against him. Fear ignited in him once again, once again indistinguishable from affection. Hannibal’s fingers ghosted the skin of his neck, softly, softly just like last time. The threat of violence stained his consciousness. 

Will’s breath stilled, but his expression never softened, that fear never crept into his eyes. Maybe that’s what Hannibal admired in him, his heart like a level, the bubble settling stoically in the perfect center. Instead of fear, his expression betrayed his wanton longing for acceptance and recognition. It betrayed his acceptance and recognition of Hannibal’s own wicked psyche. 

Maybe that was why Hannibal leaned closer, his own breath slowing so that Will could hardly feel it against the skin of his neck. Hannibal’s grip hardened around Will, stretching his chin indignantly to expose more of that sandpaper skin that housed his carotid. Will squeezed his eyes shut, that fear finally cracking his hardened enamel. He could hear his own pulse in his ears, his telltale heartbeat so loud that Hannibal couldn’t possibly resist tearing it from his sheath. 

He felt a soft wetness on his throat. There was no doubt that Hannibal could feel his heartbeat through his mouth-- It would be so easy to let his teeth close around it, to rip that artery from his throat and harvest his blood for a desert, but that threat never came to fruition. Hannibal buried a  _ kiss  _ into his throat in place of where his teeth should have been, and judging by his hesitation, Will could tell he hadn’t quite made up his mind to spare him yet. Will liked to think he would wish for Hannibal to find the self control, but something sick within him wanted to watch his own arterial spray paint a Jackson Pollock across Hannibal’s face. 

After all those years, the lessons he learned from Garret Jacob Hobbs still hadn’t subsided. Killing was a substitute for love, and it was only natural to yearn for love, to yearn for the intimacy of his blood on Hannibal’s lips. His heart picked up its pace, and he knew the other could feel it. How would Hannibal interpret it? Was it fear, or was it love? 

Will decided that there wasn’t a difference between them. He submitted beneath Hannibal’s threat, exposing his throat all on his own, begging for Hannibal to tear into it, to swallow him raw. Will was vaguely aware of Hannibal’s free hand closing around his wrist, holding him in place as if rearing to strike. The other hand moved away from Will’s throat, sliding down and settling on his chest in the miniscule space between them, over Will’s heart. He keened to the touch, and he felt a knowing grin coalesce at his throat. It was contradicted by the shuddering breath and the sudden absence of warmth. 

Will dared to look as Hannibal pulled away, his heart sinking like the marionette strings that held him together were splintering. The sweat that had started to bead on his forehead made his skin shine as he looked at Hannibal, perfectly composed. 

“I am going to eat you, Will, but I would not be so hasty as to waste such a delicacy. Don’t look so disappointed, you will have your moment of beauty at the end of my butcher’s knife.” 

He was back in Dr. Du Maurier’s office. He knew what she was doing. She was doing exactly what Hannibal had done, but without the smoke in mirrors. She was psychically driving him to complete Dr. Lecter’s magnum opus-- and Will was content to let it happen. His own submission to that fate was not surprising, not with what he had willingly been subjecting himself to. He wanted Hannibal to love him in the only way he knew how, the way he had learned from his sister. 

He looked at Dr. Du Maurier curiously from across her office, the distance between them feeling just as insurmountable as he was comfortable with. 

“Is Hannibal in love with me?” 


End file.
